“The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his… — G.K. Chesterton Intelligence Copy Share Image
“Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true.” — G.K. Chesterton Cynical Copy Share Image
“If the three brothers all ride horses, there are six animals and eighteen legs involved: that is true rationalism, and fairyland is… — G.K. Chesterton Brotherhood Copy Share Image
“The things said most confidently by advanced persons to crowded audiences are generally those opposite to the fact; it is actually our… — G.K. Chesterton Politics Copy Share Image
“It is quite futile to argue that man is small compared to the cosmos; for man was always small compared to the… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“And in history I found that Christianity, so far from belonging to the Dark Ages, was the one path across the Dark… — G.K. Chesterton Christianity Copy Share Image
“The little sins are sometimes harder to confess than the big ones—but that's why it's so important to confess them.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“In most commercial ways we’re a pretty forward country. In these moral ways we’re content to be a pretty backward country.” — G.K. Chesterton Patriotism Copy Share Image
“We may repeat here that these pages propose mainly to show one thing: that progress ought to be based on principle, while… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The poet will be discontented even in the streets of heaven. The poet is always in revolt." "There again," said Syme irritably,… — G.K. Chesterton Discontent Copy Share Image
“We cannot teach citizenship if we are not citizens; we cannot free others if we have forgotten the appetite of freedom. Education… — G.K. Chesterton Freedom Copy Share Image
“But nearly all of the people I have ever met in this western society in which I live would agree to the… — G.K. Chesterton Life Copy Share Image
“No man ought to write at all, or even to speak at all, unless he thinks that he is in truth and… — G.K. Chesterton Truth Copy Share Image
“Every man, however wise, who begins by worshipping success, must end in mere mediocrity. This strange and paradoxical fate is involved, not… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I mean that God bade me love one spot and serve it, and do all things however wild in praise of it,… — G.K. Chesterton Paradise Copy Share Image
“The people who wrote the mediaeval ballads knew more about fairies than you do. It isn't only nice things that happen in… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“It was like the face of some ancient archangel, judging justly after heroic wars. There was laughter in the eyes, and in… — G.K. Chesterton Archangel Copy Share Image
“The modern mind is like the eye of a man who is too tired to see the difference between blue and green.… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division between one of my feet and the… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“An artist is identical with an anarchist,' he cried. 'You might transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an artist. The man… — G.K. Chesterton Anarchist Copy Share Image
“It is often said by the critics of Christian origins that certain ritual feasts, processions or dances are really of pagan origin.… — G.K. Chesterton Christian Copy Share Image
“The simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being; almost in the sense of being a stranger on… — G.K. Chesterton Alien Copy Share Image
“Most Eugenists are Euphemists. I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The work of the philosophical policeman," replied the man in blue, "is at once bolder and more subtle than that of the… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“We do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we should rather seek the nobler sort of war; and see all the trees… — G.K. Chesterton Nature Copy Share Image
“Londoners had no particular objection to the King making a fool of himself, but they became indignant when it became evident that… — G.K. Chesterton Fool Copy Share Image
“We are rarely in danger of examining to excess, especially when the subject is the shape of our own lives.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“A joke is by its nature a protest against sense. It is no good attacking nonsense for being successfully nonsensical.” — G.K. Chesterton Comedy Copy Share Image
“A hunger for civilization is an appetite not easily appreciated now, when people are so overcivilized that they can only have a… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“He was one of those who are driven early in life into too conservative an attitude by the bewildering folly of most… — G.K. Chesterton Conservatism Copy Share Image
“Under the eighteenth century fashion people did not so much all pretend to be young, as all agree to be old.” — G.K. Chesterton Eighteenth Copy Share Image
“Really, if this is being glaringly good I must confess that the glare does not dazzle me.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“A finished tale may give a man immortality in the light and literary sense; but an unfinished tale suggests another immortality, more… — G.K. Chesterton Books Copy Share Image
“Our age is obviously the Nonsense Age; the wiser sort of nonsense being provided for the children and the sillier sort of… — G.K. Chesterton Wisdom Copy Share Image
“In the best Utopia, I must be prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at any moment; especially… — G.K. Chesterton Character Copy Share Image
“Of a sane man there is only one safe definition. He is the man who can have tragedy in his heart and… — G.K. Chesterton Humor Copy Share Image
“central Christian theology (sufficiently summarized in the Apostles' Creed) is the best root of energy and sound ethics.” — G.K. Chesterton Christian theology Copy Share Image
“I have a suspicion that you are all mad,’ said Dr. Renard, smiling sociably; ‘but God forbid that madness should in any… — G.K. Chesterton Friendship Copy Share Image
“The soldier must be calm in the thick of the battle," pursued the policeman. "The composure of an army is the anger… — G.K. Chesterton Peace Copy Share Image
“A man reading the Dickens novel wished that it might never end. Men read a Dickens story six times because they knew… — G.K. Chesterton Books Copy Share Image
